[krishnakv]

Is it possible that our reaction to techies and what they can do comes entirely from within?

i.e. the geeks are not really doing anything to intimidate the rest of us, they are just going about their daily lives. Its us who are assigning special labels to them, assigning special meaning to what they say ("oh he just mentioned his stackoverflow reputation, big showoff" :-) )and getting intimidated.

Also, I see this in all walks of life. Chess players have ELO rating scores, cyclists and runners talk about miles per week, programmers talk about their stakoverflow score, SEO consultants talk about their # of twitter followers etc.

If you want to be really intimidated by child prodigies, look at other fields like mathematics (Terrence Tao?), chess (Bobby Fischer). Truly awe-inspiring (and dare I say, God given) talent from a very young age.

We have it OK here in IT. Probably time to work on ourselves to be satisfied and compare less :-).

[bherms]

I like your perspective as its one I hadn't considered. Perhaps the idea of intimidation comes entirely from our own fears of not fitting in (which could be amplified when you consider the Possibility that perhaps some people who generally "belong" feel more self-conscious about fitting in with a new group as being an outsider is foreign to them... There's also something to be said about the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I don't have all night :) )...